Landscaping Mississauga gardens – very drought tolerant perennial flowers

/0 Comments/in /by

If you would like your low maintenance, drought tolerant garden to show a splash of colour throughout the season, here are some examples of perennials that will charm you with colour without demanding much in return:

sea thrift displays elegant small flowers on wiry stems

see thrift displays elegant small flowers on wiry stems

 

Sea Thrift

These small, mounded, grassy-leaved plants bear striking, rounded clusters of pink or white flowers on erect, wiry stems. Great for rock gardens and front of the border. Sea thrift tolerates poor, but well-drained (preferably sandy) soil. In fact, the plant may rot out in wet, humid conditions or in overly fertile soil. The clusters grow up to 1 foot in height and spread. It blooms from late spring to early summer.

 

butterfly weed in sunny garden combination

butterfly weed in sunny garden combination

Butterfly weed

Brightly colored, orange, pink, red and white, butterfly weed attracts many kinds of butterflies to its colorful blooms from early summer to first frost in most cases. The plant is slow to emerge in the spring, so it is important to mark its location to avoid accidental digging before new growth starts. Butterfly weed requires full sun. The clusters grow 1-8 feet high and 2-3 feet wide. This is your very low maintenance drought tolerant plant that grows well with Russian sage, coreopsis, catmint, purple Coneflower (pictured on the photo) and grasses, such as fountain grass, switch grass or northern sea oats. Butterfly weed also has some winter interest display – the seed pods turn brown over time, and add nice winter interest to the garden. However, if you let the seed pods stay over winter, you will likely end up with butterfly weed sprouting all over your garden. If that is not what you want, simply cut off the seed pods before they open.

 

Gloriosa Daisy variety has larger flowers and longer flowering period

Gloriosa Daisy variety has larger flowers and longer flowering period

Black-Eyed Susan

Gloriosa daisy, also known as Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia, or orange coneflower displays characteristic deep golden petals that radiate from chocolate centers on 2- to 4-inch-wide flowers. Plants reach 3-4 feet high and 1.5 feet wide; while some shorter varieties, such as ‘Goldilocks’ and ‘Toto’ top out at 10 inches tall. Black-eyed Susan is a superb performer for the perennial flower borders, it propagates easily from seeds, and it offers a rewarding long bloom season with a glorious display of colour ranging from solid gold, bi-colors, and doubles, depending on the variety. The Gloriosa Daisy plant is, in fact, a relative of Black-eyed Susan that typically has larger blooms with brown centers and a mahogany red color shooting into yellow outer petals. This flower will grow in most soil types that are well-drained and in sunny settings. This daisy makes a good cut flower, and the more you cut, the more blooms are produced!

Landscaping Mississauga Gardens – shrubs for dry soil conditions

/0 Comments/in /by
Larger shrubs like the Sea Buckthorn can be a very attractive addition to a low maintenance garden

Larger shrubs like the Sea Buckthorn can be a very attractive addition to a low maintenance garden

Low maintenance shrubs – Sea Buckhorn

Sea-buckthorn (Hippophae), is a hardy deciduous shrub that will thrive in almost any soil conditions, own their name to the fact that they are one of the very few plants that are also salt-tolerant, and as such are being used to stabilize the soil on the seasides where nothing else would grow.

Little demanding sea buckhorn shrubs adorn the mountainous regions of China and Russia, and the Canadian prairies where they grow naturally. They will grow in both sandy, and clay soils. In fact they will thrive in nearly any soil type; however, sea buckhorn plant requires full sunlight and is extremely intolerant of shady conditions near larger trees.

The shrubs are also very resistant to frost injury, making them an excellent choice for planting in a location in your garden that is not suitable for other plants and where they can act as a shelter. They can withstand winter temperatures of up to -40 degrees Celsius (-43 degrees F). Because of these characteristics, sea buckhorn shrubs are commonly planted for soil and water conservation purposes. For that reason, sea buckthorn was once distributed free of charge to Canadian prairie farmers by the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration to be used in shelter belts. Sea buckthorn is also a popular garden and landscaping shrub with an aggressive basal shoot system used for barrier hedges and windbreaks, and stabilize riverbanks and steep slopes.

Sea buckhorn also serves as an economic resource for food and medicine products. Legends date back to ancient Greece about its potency as an inside-out body healer that the mythical Pegasus was said to have eaten the berries of to gain the power to fly. Speculation exists, that point to Genghis Khan feeding his horse-driven army sea buckhorn in its incredibly successful conquest that, at its peak, conquered 16% of the Earth’s total land area. More recently, sea buckhorn was a sponsored drink at the Beijing Olympics and also is also used by Russian Cosmonauts for nutrition and radiation protection in space.

It is a fact that sea buckhorn oil contains ten times the amount of vitamin C than is found in oranges. It provides a natural and potent source of anti-oxidants that benefit our skin by protecting the cells and DNA structure against the damage caused by poor diet, environmental pollution and sun damage. It also boosts the production of collagen, improves skin texture & pigment distribution, as well as it acts as anti-inflammatory. Sea buckthorn berries are used for preventing infections, improving sight, and slowing the aging process. Some people apply sea buckthorn berries, berry concentrate, and berry or seed oil directly to the skin sunburn prevention, treating radiation damage from x-rays and healing wounds including bedsores, burns, and cuts.

The shrubs reach 0.5–4 metres tall, its branches are dense and stiff, and very thorny. The leaves are a distinct pale silvery-green, lanceolate, 3–8 centimetres (1.2–3.1 in) long and less than 7 millimetres (0.28 in) broad. It propagates much like any other plant, with seeds or cuttings. Requires some pruning to keep under control. It’s best to prune it on a regular basis and train it in a manageable growth pattern for future harvesting.

Landscaping Mississauga Gardens – Sumac

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by
Staghorn sumac will bring an interesting display of colours in the late summer and fall

Staghorn sumac will bring an interesting display of colours in the late summer and fall

Large shrubs for dry soil – sumac

Depending upon whom you ask, sumac (sometimes spelled, “sumach”) is considered either a small tree or a tall shrub. Regardless in what category the plant is put, it certainly outperforms the largest trees with its fall colourful foliage. Dense stands of sumac trees covering a slope next to some Ontario highways in a sea of red, are some of the best fall foliage spectacles we witness each year. Despite their beauty sumacs recently became less popular. This is due to the confusion resulting from the fact that apart from the delightful and harmless sumacs, there also exists in the wild a poisonous version of the species that can cause a severe skin irritation when touched. Poison sumac, however, is in a distinct minority amongst the sumacs. The remaining sumac trees and shrubs produce no poison, but provide spectacular autumn color.

Additionally, it is easy to distinguish poison sumacs from their non-poison sumac relatives in the fall, when the berries have ripened to maturity. The poisonous plants have white berries in the fall, and the berries hang down. Non-poison sumacs bear red berries and their berries grow upright. In addition, poison sumac plants grow almost exclusively in swamps, whereas non-poison sumac plants prefer precisely the opposite habitat — soils that are well-drained and many are drought- tolerant. To avoid any confusion it is best to buy sumacs from nurseries.

One of the most popular sumacs in the GTA area is staghorn sumac, a tough plant that can be grown in dry areas of the garden. It is a relatively tall, tree-like variety that can reach up to 25 feet in height. Staghorn derives its name from the hairy texture of its branches, reminiscent of the velvety feel of deer antlers. The smooth sumac tree (Rhus glabra) is another common variety; it attains a height of about 10 feet. Both provide striking fall foliage.

As mentioned at the outset, the fall foliage they provide is unsurpassed. Nor is their autumn color display limited to their leaves, for the tuft atop the plant that holds sumac’s berries is red and fluffy, increasing the plant’s visual appeal. An added bonus is the fact that this seed-tuft remains on the sumac trees all winter, attracting colorful wild birds, whose presence greatly enhances the color and variety of winter scenery. Increasingly, homeowners begin to understand the importance of achieving four seasons of visual interest on the landscape and sumac is perfect for that as adequate winter scenery is perhaps the most difficult to achieve, since vegetation is more robust in the other three seasons.

Sumac in winter

Sumac in winter

Sumac seeds are an important source of bird food, precisely because they do stay on the plant long enough to be part of your winter scenery. This makes them an excellent emergency food for birds throughout the winter and beyond. I have witnessed bluebirds, black-capped chickadees and robins feeding on sumac seeds throughout the whole winter and into early spring today.